


Retreat, Advance, Change of Engagement

by ljs



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: AU, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-09-19
Updated: 2010-09-19
Packaged: 2017-10-12 00:17:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/118730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ljs/pseuds/ljs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Diverges from canon in Season Five, near the end of "Into the Woods."</p><p>Fencing, shop-work, demon biker-bars, and a change in direction.</p><p>(Acknowledgements: William Shakespeare, Neil Young.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Retreat, Advance, Change of Engagement

The door opens. Giles's life changes.

Anya blows into the Magic Box as if propelled by gale-force winds. Even as she all but rings the bell over the door off its hook, she demands, “Giles, where are your swords?”

He carefully puts aside the Society of Magic Shops quarterly (to which she has subscribed them) and his pre-opening cup of tea before answering, “Which swords?”

“The sharp ones.” She arrives at the counter in a flurry of loosened hair and unbuttoned coat, and puts her hand to the cash register as if to steady herself. He almost doesn't need her statement, “I am unhappy and angry, and I want to poke at something.”

He notices almost unwillingly how prettily she flushes when 'unhappy and angry' – he's been noticing too much about her, in fact, since they began working together in the shop. To cover this, he frowns. “I keep a foil or two in the training room, but--”

“Great!” She's storming off before he can stop her.

When he catches her in the training room, however, she's collapsing on her own: flutter of hair, unbuttoned coat, hands; downturn of red-tinted mouth. “Anya, are you all right?” he says, going to his knees beside her crumpled self on the floor.

“Xander broke up with me,” she blurts out. “Because apparently Buffy told him that he was taking me for granted, and he thought about it, and felt bad, and then said he wouldn't take me at all. Which....” She takes a shuddering breath. “Are you going to fire me? Because I know you only hired me because of him.”

Yes, he thinks, that's why he hired her. Even as maddening as she can be, however, and even as... problematic... her customer-relations skills can be at times, she is an enormous help. And good, if often annoying, company. And so pretty when she flushes -- “Er, no. I'm certainly not going to fire you.” He hesitates. “You didn't actually answer my question.”

“Sure. Great,” she says unconvincingly. Then, eyes wide with unshed tears, she smiles. “Now where are these swords?”

She is disappointed when she sees them, however: they're blunt foils for fencing, rather than the broadswords he has reserved for Buffy's Slaying work and his own occasional forays into practice. “Swords should be _sharp_ ,” she says, fingertip on the plastic button which covers the tip.

“But too many people get hurt that way,” he says gently.

Her eyes darken, her brows draw together. “What's the purpose of a sword if it's not sharp? Or love if it's not real, or a Wish if it's not meant?”

He has no immediate answer, but the shop-bell saves him. He rubs her shoulder encouragingly, then flees for the safety of customer service and a room's-width distance between them. Her words stay with him.

When he comes back to the training room (after a good sale on an effigy she'd sourced), she stands barefoot in the middle of the room, holding a foil in her right hand, and he loses breath for a second.

“Well, then,” she says, “let's practice with these stupid blunt swords.”

........................................

“Touche,” she says, and drops her foil. Then she takes off her mask. “Okay, okay, you won, but how'd I do?”

He's ripped off his own mask in a vain attempt to get his breath back. She used to fight with broadswords, she's confided, but even without fencing experience, she's fast and lithe, she's pressed him hard.

“Fine,” he gets out.

She pirouettes, sword in hand. “I _feel_ fine! Or, at least, less likely to cry without warning or curse Xander.” She beams at him. “Let's do this every day before work, Giles.”

“Right. Yes,” he says, thinking, Oh God, oh no, oh fuck.

She brushes his shoulder lightly with her foil. “Thank you,” she says, voice as soft as a kiss, and then throws the foil into the umbrella stand where he (yes, unconventionally) keeps them, and then dances out.

He looks down at the mask in his hand and closes his eyes. Oh God, oh no, oh fuck.

....................................................

  
A week goes by. They fence every morning, talking lightly beforehand about footwork and bladework. He almost always wins, but she presses him more and more. They eat lunch together every day, sharing napkins and chat about magic and demon history. He is constantly surprised by how much she knows, how easily she can parry his own stories. Here, she wins.

She smiles at him at odd moments, during Scooby meetings (where Xander seems confused by, yet magnanimous about, her continuing presence there), when they fill the stockroom, and as the lights go off on their shop every night. He is beginning to count them when he gets home alone.

Once they're practising, she is all business.

“Quit... messing with my advance,” she gasps.

“Just a simple...” He shifts his sword to his right hand, comes at her blade from the opposite side. “...change of engagement.”

“Damn it!” She can't manage the counter-parry in time, and he slips through, he makes contact. “Oh, fine, touche. And _damn_ it.”

He pushes the mask back over his damp hair, and smiles. “Won another round, I think.”

“I'll get you tomorrow,” she vows. “Just you wait, Giles.”

He has never seen anything as lovely as she is. He has never felt so unsteady, as if he's lunging into the dark toward an unseen opponent.

He says nothing, however, and he goes home alone.

.......................................................

  
Buffy's abstracted these days – he knows she's sad for the loss of Riley, worried about her mother, silent about something she isn't confiding. But after a fortnight of Giles' new life, she catches him outside the Magic Box as he's closing up after Anya's left. He's thinking about a clever disengagement Anya used against him that morning, thinking about the slide of her feet on the wooden floor...

“Can we talk, Giles?” Buffy says.

“Of course, Buffy.” He puts on his Watcher-mask, draws it down over his eyes. “Er, here, or shall we...”

“Let's go to the Espresso Pump,” she says.

They walk through the dusk, separate, quiet. They find a table in the corner; he orders a cup of (adequate) tea, she orders some frothy concoction over-full of sugar. They sit, silent in the crowd, until he says finally, “What's the trouble, Buffy?”

“Gee, I don't know -- besides an insane hell-type running around, and a bratty baby sister, and my mom in and out of the hospital?”

“Ah. Right. Well, then, which should we deal with first?”

Staring down pensively, she stirs the cream into her drink. “How 'bout the Anya-thing?”

“Which is?” He has to work to keep his sudden and profound irritation hidden.

Her spoon clinks against the side of her cup, once, twice. “Xander and Willow and I... She's around all the time, and we were just wondering if, I don't know, maybe you were talking to her about demon-y things? Figuring out some Glory stuff? Because...”

Because they were wondering what else he might be doing with her, he finishes in his head. He's not sure if he's more offended that they assume his only contact with Anya is work-related, or more horrified if they don't so assume. His relationship with her, such as it is – it's private.

He thinks now of the wisdom he often glimpses in her eyes, the intelligence and depth he often hears in that sharp, unbuttoned voice of hers. He has avoided these truths too long, he realises.

Oh, and they _are_ battling a 'hell-type', and he used to be a Watcher. Right. Yes.

He sips his tea before replying. “I haven't talked to her about it, no. But I will. Yes, of course.”

A shadow passes by the Espresso Pump's windows – he can't see more than that-- but Buffy startles. Then, falsely cheerful, she says, “Great! Great! Because I'd like to worry just about the bratty kid and the sick mom, to be honest, and also I have a horrible test in Poetry next week.”

He smiles at her. “Well, I'll try to ease your mind, so you only have to worry about Wordsworth.”

She smiles back. “Tennyson. We're doing the Victorians.” Then she stops, frowns, clinks her spoon again against the cup.

He'd frown too if he had to read the bloody Victorians, of course.

They talk a moment longer, then the shadow passes by again, and she tells him she has to go.

He sits there by himself until his tea is gone. Sometimes Anya stops by here in the evenings – she likes a decaf latte, skim milk, extra cinnamon. But tonight she doesn't appear.

He goes home alone, thinking of disengagements and parries, absently murmuring bits of Shakespeare to himself. His arm swings as if he's carrying a blade.

...............................................

  
There's a demon-biker bar outside Sunnydale, Anya informs him after their bout the next morning. “I don't want to go by myself – humans being tasty treats to some of the clientele, although humans do patronise the joint – but we could go together if you'd like. Some of Glory's scabby minions might be there.”

“And we might spy on them?” he says, then wipes his face with the towel she gives him.

“We might!” she says brightly. With one small hand she pushes back her damp-tendriled hair; he in turn pushes back the thought of licking that shell of an ear. She's still talking, pay attention: “But we'll have to take blades, _real_ ones, sharp ones, or you'll have to be prepared with some magic so we're not chomped on.”

Cold zings down his spine. “'Prepared with magic,' you say?”

“Come on, I know you used to do it.” She brushes her fingertips over the tip of his exposed tattoo -- he fences in just his T-shirt now-- and chaos swirls in his gut. No, that's fear, and guilt. “I did too, long ago. A millennium ago--”

“Before you were a vengeance demon?” he says.

Her eyes darken in sadness which doesn't pass. “Yep. That's how I _became_ a vengeance demon.” Then her gaze flicks upward, he feels the cut of it. “You raised demons, I turned into one. We're... idiots, really.”

Laughter, true and deep, overcomes his fear. “I must agree. But...” His hand goes to hers; they entwine fingers, they match callus to callus. “We're better now.”

“Do you think so?” Her voice is sharp-edged pain, as is her smile.

He presses in, palm to palm. _Palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss_.... “We're trying, at any rate.”

Her laughter joins his, intertwined, callus to callus.

...............................................

  
That night, after the Magic Box doors are locked, he practises a spell or two of concealment. It comes easily to him, for once. She lights the bayberry and grass candles for him, listens silently to his invocation of power, and watches him collect the warm drops of wax for their talismans.

His hand on hers, he helps her press her thumbprint into her talisman. He whispers a wish for good luck into her hair, and then he whispers her name.

She leans back against him, silent. He feels the press of her body like he is warm wax, like he is imprinted with the swirls and circles that are Anya. He will feel that imprint even after he goes home alone.

...............................................

  
The night after that, they decide they're ready to go to the demon-biker bar. When they mention this at the afternoon's Scooby meeting, there's... oddly little response.

Xander isn't there, for one; he's working late at his job-site. Willow and Tara are involved in their own planning for a divination ritual to discover more about Glory, and Willow's not listening to him much in any event. Buffy is a little subdued, muttering something about a patrol with Spike the preceding evening.

Only Dawn is interested – but then, to Giles' surprise, she's recently become rather a Magic Box habitue. (Anya caught Dawn trying to shoplift; there had been what Anya called a “come-to-Gaharshnic chat,” whatever that means; Dawn has been stopping by after school ever since, without stealing anything.) “So what are you going to _do_ , exactly?” she demands.

“Surveillance,” Giles says.

“Espionage!” Anya says.

“Magic,” they say together, and Giles finishes, “Possibly a little swordwork, if necessary.”

That's enough to make Buffy look at them. “You remember the various and hideous ways magic can go all whoopsy-daisy, right?” she says sternly. “Also, the bloodiness of blood?”

Giles and Anya glance at each other. “Yes,” Anya says, “we're well aware of all possible disasters. Because we've agreed that we've been idiots in the past.”

Under the table, her hand finds his. He holds on, tight as he can.

..........................................

  
That evening he stands in front of his wardrobe, holding his old flannel shirt. The last time he'd worn it had been the night of the band candy incident. It would provide useful cover, perhaps...

He thinks of sex on the bonnet of a car, the lingering heat of the day radiating up through the metal and the pliant strength of a woman's body.

In his imagination, however, it's Anya in whom he's sunk so deep. He coughs to clear his mind, but the vision doesn't leave.

He shrugs the flannel shirt over his T-shirt. He knots his old battered workboots tight as they can go. Paradoxically, he feels released. Change of engagement, coming at the problem from the other side...

He pulls a couple of daggers from his weapons-stash, nevertheless. No harm in being careful. He's not a bloody teenager any more.

On his way to pick up Anya, he stops by the confectioners' just before they close, and he buys two boxes of their best chocolates (assorted; un-magicked). He drops off the first box at Buffy's house: Joyce isn't feeling well, and Buffy's out on patrol, but Dawn pounces on them happily and promises to share them with her mother. Her smile, wide and innocent and glowing, is something to see.

But that's nothing to Anya's smile when he arrives at her apartment door and proffers the chocolates. He hasn't realised how deep the sadness runs underneath that brittle, go-getting energy. Now, however, she all but shines at him. “Giles, this is so... nice. And chocolatey!” She dives into the box, throwing lid and paper carelessly aside – although she is not a careless woman, he knows – and pulls out a caramel. “Do you like these?”

“Er, I like the ones with fruit in the centre best.” Like jelly doughnuts, of course. “But I don't need...”

“Here!” She throws the caramel into her mouth – he should not watch the movement of her jaw and think of her taking him inside, he should not, he should not – and then, before he can blink, she chooses a cherry-filled chocolate and pops it into his mouth. Her fingers caress his lips before retreating. “There. _I_ think you needed it.” She beams at him.

She has no fucking idea, he thinks – and then licks his lips to recover chocolate and her touch.

Once she's put away her chocolates and collected her bag, they're off in the older Thunderbird he's hired for the night. (He's not going to drive the BMW, not to a bloody demon bar. Not a sodding idiot.) She's got the directions -- “I've never been, but Spike has,” she says artlessly, and he has to swallow stupid, pointless jealousy. After all, he knows she negotiated directions with the help of a burba-weed bribe. The bar, she says, is out in the country near the coast.

He knows this road. There's a vineyard or two out this way, positioned on westward-facing hills to catch the chill morning fog rolling off the Pacific. He and Jenny once took a tour of the one furthest west....

“Are you okay?” Anya says. “You look really sad all of a sudden.”

“No, not really. Just... remembering someone who's gone.”

“Oh. Yep, that's a recipe for sadness.” She turns her head away from him, as if the rows of Pinot Noir grapes hold all the world's fascination for her. The last of the sunset pours through the windshield, bathing her in rose.

He touches her hand. “I'm sorry, Anya.”

“You've done nothing except be handsome and nice and maybe beat me once too often at blunt-swordfighting. So don't feel sorry, Giles, except for the ordering of those _stupid_ crushed-beetle candles, they're _never_ going to move --”

Smiling, he halfheartedly slaps at her arm, and she (somewhat harder) slaps back, and the last of the sunset is full of their amusement. For a moment he forgets their mission, the weight under which they labour, and simply enjoys.

..............................................

  
The demon-biker bar is as noisome as advertised: bloodstains on the walls, crushed glass underfoot, growls and snorts in dark corners, horned creatures slamming down bad American beer at the bar. One or two humans (or so he assumes) are here, too, covered in tattoos and grime. Part of Giles, the tidy Watcher part, is appalled. Part of him, the part which kept his old flannel shirt and boots always ready even here in enemy country, thinks it's fucking brilliant.

Except for the early Elton John on the bar stereo. 's not even “Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting,” for Christ's sake.

A few heads turn when he and Anya enter – perhaps because they're human, perhaps because Anya looks so delicious in her loose top and black jeans. At the particularly pointed stare from a Greetzak demon, she grabs at Giles's shirt, then whispers, “Dagger and talisman?”

He says, “Yes, darling,” without realizing what he's said until she giggles. He decides to let her think it's a joke or a performance rather than a real slip. (Retreat for now, he tells himself.)

He drops the talisman of concealment he made for her into her bag, next to the dagger he's already hidden there, and murmurs the proper incantation. The air around them shimmers and chills as if to presage fog, it flutters as if they're veiled.

The demon spectators turn their heads and return to bloodstains, crushed glass, growls and snorts.

He and Anya make their way to the bar, where he orders a couple of beers for them. She nestles into him while they wait, which makes him ridiculously happy...

And then she whispers in his ear, “Scabby minions, three tables over.”

He'd missed them due to the hulking chaos demon (not _his_ kind of chaos, of course) morosely dripping slime and swigging whiskey at the nearer table – but yes, now he sees. “We'll work our way over,” he whispers back.

Beers in hand, they do drift through the crowd, closer to the minions. The little brown-robed sods mutter too low for full ease of overhearing, but a few words comes through: “Glorificus,” “the Key,” and “hungry.” Giles also sees that there are golden discs hanging from each minion's rope-belt, which the minions fondle. The markings on the discs are suggestive --

“Are those star charts?” Anya whispers. “On the scabby ones' pendants?”

That makes sense – if Glorificus is waiting for a particular date for some magic or interdimensional reason. He needs more information.

Anya darts away from him, and for a second she's lost in the veil of concealment, he's ready to panic, and then she's back. Carrying a golden disc, in fact.

He begins, “Did you--”

“Steal it?” Through some miracle, she keeps her voice low. “Yep. The sharp blade came in handy; that tie sliced right up.”

The marked metal glows in the palm of her hand until she closes her fingers over it.

But then there's noise and clamour at the door, as if a celebrity has arrived, and the minions look up. “Glorificus her creamy self!”moans one of them in ecstasy. “Here to find someone to eat!” murmurs another.

Giles knows that Glory shouldn't see him and Anya, not after her trip to the Magic Box. There's a separate exit in the corner, there are a knot of biker-demons and a couple of vampires in the way, the slime on the floor's unspeakable --

“Here,” he whispers, and after disposing of their half-drunk beers on the counter, he swings Anya into his arms. Through the aural murk, he hears that the sound system is now conveniently playing a slow song – oh for fuck's sake, it's the opening of “Free Bird” -- which makes their move into a slow-dance embrace more plausible.

Anya in his arms, pressed sweetly against him, is enough to distract a stronger man than Rupert Giles, but he manages to focus.

Together they sway to the beat. Together they make a slow but steady progress toward the corner exit... Until one of the vampires stumbles into their path, until Glorificus's minion shouts, “My gold,” until Glory herself says too close, “Who _do_ I smell?”

Anya whispers, “Giles, what do we do?”

His tattoo is itching. Yes, a spot of home-grown chaos will go down well right about now.

"Head for the door,” he whispers, “wait,” then lets her go.

The vampire raises his head, glares at them, sniffs. His brow ripples: “Hey hey, my my--”

“'Rock and roll will never die,'” Giles says, grinning, then catches up the nearest bar stool and throws it at the vamp's head. When the vamp ducks, the missile hits the Greetzak demon in the small of the back.

The Greetzak turns, growling, claws extended. Giles shouts, “It's the sodding bloodsucker's fault,” and pushes the vamp in that direction.

As the Lynyrd Skynyrd cranks up, the mother of all bar-fights breaks out: teeth, fists, growls, and the fading whimper of Glory's minion calling for its lost pendant.

“Ah, I've still got it,” Giles murmurs, then with a little help from his dagger – advance, retreat, parry, thrust – he makes his way to the door where Anya waits for him.

It's she who pulls him out of the slime left by the chaos demon, in fact, and together they burst outside into a gravelled side-yard.

It's she who incants the spell of concealment this time, who causes the night to chill, to veil, to flutter around them. “And we're done,” she pants, pulling him again. He follows, then takes the lead to the car.

They're almost out of the car park when Glory's minions and a stray demon or two erupt out of the bar's main doors. “Hurry, hurry, Giles,” Anya says, and he floors it as much as this old Detroit-made piece of shit allows. He should have brought the BMW after all.

They speed through the hills, but behind them flicker headlights, getting closer...

“Turn here,” Anya snaps, and without thinking he spins the wheel. It's a dirt road – ah, they're on the other side of the vineyard, it's a service road.

A gate flashes before them, and again without thinking he casts a spell he'd used long ago. The gate opens. They jounce through and into a dark, tree-roofed layby, cut the engine and lights. The gate closes.

Not that far away, their pursuers fly by. Their engines are loud in this quiet place, then fade away until he can hear his own and Anya's breathing. Safe.

“We should probably hang out for a while before going back. Let's sit outside, okay?” she says, and he can hear the repressed panic in her voice. She's confided in him that she's occasionally prey to claustrophobia...

“Let's,” he says, and takes her hand.

....................................................

  
Night sky, dark; stars, twinkling through the tree branches. Fog is beginning to roll in, however.

But the bonnet of the Thunderbird is warm underneath his back, Anya is lying at his side, and together they look up at dark shot with light.

He is un-masked and real, he is here with her, and he is happy to be both.

She stirs, then fumbles with the stolen disc until she manages to lift it to the sky, holding it where they both can see. The metal glows with its own light. She turns it around until the chart on the disc matches the sky... except not quite.

She begins, “We're looking for--”

“That particular movement of the stars,” he finishes, and points to the disc. “Right quadrant, there. Readjustment.”

“This star's got to advance,” she says, with accompanying gesture. “This one's got to retreat, or align, or something. And then--”

“Something nasty happens, I assume.” He sighs. “I need to research it.”

“Are you going to leave?” Her voice is quiet, a little shaky. “Go back to Watcher-Central and scout around in the dust?”

He takes off his glasses and puts them away, then turns onto his side to look at her. She's not looking at him, in favour of lowering the golden disc and stowing it in her handbag at her side. But this close, he sees the strain, the pinch around lovely eyes and mouth.

If he'd thought about it beforehand, which he hadn't, he'd have said just that: he'd collect his old tweed jacket and what was left of the man he'd been, and head off to the Council's headquarters in Bloomsbury. But now, here, freed under the stars -- “I'll try some of my more, er, local contacts first. My old colleague Wes – Wesley Wyndam-Pryce? He's working in Los Angeles, I understand. With Angel, which is regrettable, but... Right, Wes might have an idea or two.”

She turns onto her side, facing him. It's the work of a moment for him to capture her hand, entwine fingers, match callus to callus. _Palm to palm is holy palmers' kiss_.

“Great! If you wait until Sunday when the shop's closed, I can go to L.A. with you,” she says brightly.

He rolls over so that he's mostly on top of her, one thigh between hers, torso half-covering hers. They break their handclasp, but only so that she can tunnel her arms under his flannel shirt and encircle him with that surprising strength of hers, only so that he can brace himself with his right arm and smooth back her tumbled hair with his left hand. The heat of the day radiates up through the bonnet, through her oh so human self, into him. They are pressed together, imprinted. He's getting hard very, very fast.

He is un-masked and real, and so bloody happy to be here with her. Judging by her new smile, untainted by old pain, she is as well.

“Yes, darling,” he says, “we'll go together then,” and then lowers his mouth.

Before he makes contact, however, he grins at her. “'Hey hey, my my,'” he sings half-voice. “'Rock and roll can never die.'”

Pliant, shuddering, but still sharp: “Giles, what the hell does that mean--”

But then he's laughing, and then he's kissing her. Her mouth opens wider to let him in. Their tongues touch, slide, retreat, advance.

They change direction, they remain entwined. They both win.


End file.
